Manufacturing resource outsourcing and matching: service mode selection and equilibrium evolution

Manufacturing resource outsourcing platforms facilitate the meeting and matching of manufacturing service seekers and providers. The platform’s service mode, the willingness of seekers to match, and providers’ carbon emission reduction (CER) directly affect entities’ decisions. Therefore, this paper employs an evolutionary game approach to analyse the manufacturing resource matching (MRM) between the providers and seekers and a sequential game model to analyse the pricing and CER strategies between the platform and providers. First, this study reveals that the service mode does not influence the evolutionary path and stability of MRM. However, matching in the cooperative mode becomes easier due to higher resource quantities. Second, we find that the cooperative mode can enhance the system’s profits, and an appropriate revenue-sharing ratio is crucial for the platform and providers. Third, the analysis indicates that while the cooperative model can generate higher profits, it may also result in increased total carbon emissions.